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Cameron

A fter finishing every scrap of the food, I had to lay back and let my food digest. “I’m full,” I said, and then surprised myself by releasing a little belch. “Ugh, sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

Nate chuckled and lay down beside me, staring at the slowly brightening sky.

He took my hand, his thumb grazing my palm.

A sizzling tremor of excitement ran through me at his touch.

I had no idea why he affected me the way he did, but I wasn’t mad about it.

His touch didn’t feel possessive or demanding, as though he wanted something more from me.

It just was . It was so different from what I’d had with Rick.

Each time he’d touched me or held my hand, I’d felt like he was dragging me along or pushing me forward, trying to show me off as his.

A trophy he wanted to parade around. I’d never truly noticed it until now.

A flash, unwanted and painful, burst through my mind: Nate, hopping on a motorcycle and riding away from me.

Once again, drifting off to live his nomadic lifestyle, vanishing toward the horizon without me.

The thought sent a dagger into my chest. An unyielding sadness speared my heart at the mental image.

We each had our issues and things we needed to work through.

I’d spent years building up walls I hadn’t even realized I’d built, but even then, this felt right. I really didn’t want Nate to leave.

Nate tilted his head to look at my face. “Are you okay?”

Swallowing back my emotions, I plastered a smile on my face. “Sure. Yeah,” I said, and sat back up, wrapping my arms around my knees. “How do you think I’ll fit in with JC’s pack?”

It wasn’t the question I really wanted to ask, which was: Are you going to stay with me ? Still, I had been wondering about the pack.

“Are you having second thoughts?” Nate asked.

“No. Not really.” That was the truth. “JC has been amazing so far. I really like him, and I think he’s a good leader. It’s everyone else I’m wondering about. You guys have all said it’s extremely rare for humans to become shifters. Am I going to be an outcast or something?”

Nate looked toward the river. When he spoke again, it was in a calm, measured tone.

“Shifters can be very backward in their views,” he explained slowly.

“You’ve got centuries of dogma that has sort of built upon itself over time.

” He held up a hand. “Saying that, the packs located in and around large metro areas tend to be a little more progressive. This really is the best-case scenario for you. Plus, you were turned against your will. If anything, they’ll accept you more readily because of that. Unlike me,” he added with a sigh.

Nate plucked a few blades of grass and tossed it into the wind, obviously agitated.

“You don’t think they’d accept you?” I asked hesitantly. “I mean, if you wanted to join?”

“The laws are what they are. At this point, they’ve spread through the whole world.

No pack would be willing to go against the law to bring in one wolf.

Toronto-Ottawa is one of the three or four most powerful packs on the planet.

Anything they do has ripples. JC does seem like a great alpha, but I doubt even he would want to rock the boat that much. ”

Part of me wanted to argue against that, but I didn’t have enough experience to know for sure.

Carly, Leonard, Annie, and the other shifters were kind, but would they be if they met Nate and learned he was a lone wolf?

It made my heart ache to think of that sweet old woman flinching away from Nate in disgust. All because of some stupid law.

“What do you think is going to happen? With Rick and his dad?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“My hope?” Nate raised an eyebrow. “They both end up in jail.”

A weird question bubbled up in my mind. I frowned, wondering what the answer was, then went ahead and asked.

“Shifters can go to prison? Like, a normal human jail?”

Nate shrugged. “Sometimes. Yeah.”

“Wouldn’t they shift to try and escape or show the world what they are? That would be a surefire way to ruin the secret, right?”

“They wouldn’t dare. Shifters are in all levels. Whatever prison they were in, there’d be a good chance that at least a couple guards were shifters. Not to sound brutal, but if one of them tried some shit like that, they’d end up dead.”

“Oh my God,” I gasped, putting a hand to my mouth.

“It is what it is. Like I told you before, the need for secrecy in our kind is bone-deep. Soul -deep. For any shifters who are too crazy to know better, like ferals or people who are simply psychotic, they’d be dealt with before they even made it to prison.

It’s a fairly brutal way to deal with it, but it’s better than the alternative. ”

“Wow. Okay, then.” I glanced down. His hand was still on mine. After everything we’d been through together, why not lay it all out? Maybe not as bluntly as I wanted to, but I could at least get a glimpse of where his head was at.

“What do you want out of life, Nate?”

His head snapped up, his eyes locking on mine. “What do you mean?”

“For, like, life ?” I nudged him with my elbow and grinned. “Or do you want to be riding down a highway on a motorcycle when you’re eighty and tip over from a coronary one day?”

The look on his face told me he’d never been asked that question. Not only that, but he’d apparently never even thought about it himself. He looked perplexed. Befuddled to an extent that almost made me laugh.

“Uh…” He rubbed his head. “I guess that’s a good question. I’ve never really made plans, per se.”

“You live life one mile at a time,” I said with an even bigger grin. “A bad boy who leaves a string of broken hearts from horizon to horizon. My God,” I gasped dramatically, putting a hand to my chest. “Nate, are you a walking cliché?”

“Don’t be an asshole,” he said, rolling his eyes and chuckling before shoving me playfully.

“I guess I’d like to settle down one day.

” His gaze slid from my eyes down to where his fingers touched mine before he looked at me again.

“If the right person came around, anyway. Someone who could accept me for who I am.”

The morning suddenly felt much warmer than it had a few moments ago. Swallowing hard, I went to stand.

“Well, I guess we should get going,” I said, getting to my feet. “I think you’ll get there. That happy ending. If you want it, that is.”

I wasn’t even sure what I meant by that, but it came tumbling from my mouth before I could stop myself. Part of me was abashed at my boldness, but my inner wolf gave an encouraging snarl, happy at what I’d said.

Nate smirked at me. “Yeah. Sure. Maybe.”

Cheeks red, I brushed my pants off and folded the towels, tucking them under my hand. Nate walked over to a nearby trashcan and deposited our trash and empty bottles.

“Back to the car?” Nate asked.

Reaching out and taking his hand, I nodded. “Let’s do it.”

As we strolled back in a comfortable silence, I realized we’d been right at the edge a moment before. Both of us, our toes on the precipice, ready to make some life-altering leap, but neither of us quite ready to move those last few inches.

Hand in hand, we walked slower than either of us normally would. Walking with him was soothing. It never felt forced or uncomfortable. I realized it was the way I’d always thought I’d act when I was falling in love with someone.

That thought sent a storm of butterflies through my stomach. Was I falling for Nate?

Glancing over at him, I eyed the sharp angle of his jaw, the stubble along his cheeks. He turned to look at me and grinned that cocky smile of his. When he winked, my knees nearly went out from under me, and it was all I could do to smile back and keep walking.

Yeah. I was falling for him. But was it the same for him?

When we reached the car, we drove to the nearest gas station to fill up.

As leisurely as our walk had been, we were almost frantic to get out of the city.

We had a long trip ahead of us and wanted to get back to JC’s protection as soon as we could.

What had happened the night before still weighed heavily on both of us.

The sooner we made it back home, the better we’d both feel.

“Need to use the bathroom or anything?” Nate asked once he was done filling the car.

“I’m good,” I said.

We drove in silence until we crossed the river and passed the border crossing. When we reached the 401, Nate asked, “You wanna put some music on?”

“Sure, hang on,” I said, and connected my phone to the car’s Bluetooth. Scrolling through my phone’s music library, I tried to make a selection. A memory of last night surfaced. On a whim, I looked up Christopher Cross and played the first song that popped up.

“Oh,” I said in surprise as the piano melody came through the speakers. “I know this song.”

“You do?” Nate asked, glancing over with a surprised look on his face.

“Yeah. My mom used to play it when I was a kid, I think. She liked a lot of this ’80s soft-rock stuff. Billy Joel, Genesis, Toto, all that stuff.”

I began to sing along, bobbing my head as a saxophone kicked in during the chorus. To my shock and absolute delight, Nate sang the chorus along with me.

“ I’ve got such a long way to go,” Nate sang. “ To make it to the border of Mexico .”

“No fucking way.” I clapped my hands to my mouth, barely able to contain my giggles.

“What?” Nate asked, smiling broadly at me. “I’m not allowed to like this?”

“How on earth do you know the words to this? This is, like, old-people music.”

“How dare you?” Nate said with faux horror. “‘Ride Like the Wind’ is a classic.”

Neither of us could keep a straight face, and we dissolved into laughter.

Once we’d recovered, I replayed the song, and we both sang along.

No one would have ever said Nate or I had angelic voices or could even hold a tune, but it didn’t matter to us.

I found and put on an ’80s and ’90s oldies playlist. We sang along to the songs we knew, which was a surprising number.

I was having more fun with Nate today than I had in all the months I’d been with Rick combined.

It was crazy to think I’d wanted to spend my life with a stuck-up and rigid man like that.

Nate, on first glance, appeared to be a bad-boy heartbreaker.

Someone who held all his emotions in check under a mask of indifference and cockiness.

Now that I’d gotten to know him, I saw there was a lot more underneath, and I wanted to see more of it.

Maybe I could be the one to drag out the rest of what he’d kept hidden for all these years.

I spotted a road sign ahead and made a split-second decision.

“Take that exit,” I said, pointing through the window. “Let’s go back via Leamington.”

Recalling the article I’d seen in the old newspaper the night before, I thought this direction might take us near the bridge. Maybe, if we found that location, I could bring it up without freaking Nate out too much.

“That will add at least an hour to the trip, Cameron,” Nate pointed out with a frown.

I shrugged. “So? We got the proof. Or at least the only proof we could get. What’s a little extra time before we get home? Do you have anything pressing?”

For a few seconds, he stared at me like I’d lost my mind while Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” blared through the stereo. Finally, he let out a little chuckle and shook his head ruefully.

“All right, then. Let’s have an adventure,” he said, and took the exit.

He didn’t really even argue. Without a second thought, he took my suggestion and ran with it. That kind of trust was difficult to find. He wasn’t doing this to impress me or win me over. He simply trusted that it would all be fine. Hopefully, I could reward that trust with some closure.

“You know,” I said, “most guys would argue about increasing the length of a trip like this.”

“Maybe the guys you’re used to would,” Nate said, responding without hesitation.

That statement gave me pause. I had to wonder if I’d somehow attracted the exact kind of men I didn’t want. Some reverse, self-fulfilling prophecy or something.

As he drove, I did a bit of self-reflection.

Up until a few couple weeks ago, my life had been marked by change and instability.

Mom’s many failed relationships. Moving from Mexico to Canada.

The financial struggles and everything that entailed.

What if, in trying to stabilize my life, I’d actually hurt myself more than I would’ve if I’d simply thrown caution to the wind?

At first, the thought was counterintuitive, but upon closer inspection, it gave me the sensation of being right.

I closed my eyes and pondered what other things I’d done wrong in my never-ending quest to have a normal, stable life. Before I got very far, the steady hum of the tires and wind lulled me into a dreamless sleep.